I am The_Boy_Named_Blue. I do the same things other Blue people do. I'm a poet, hopeful novelist, storyteller and a journalist. I might write something awe-inspiring or I might just ramble on about nothing.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Well, I now know why my cat is going bald: feline psychogenic alopecia obsessive compulsive disorder. My cat is OCD and is licking off all of the fur on its stomach. Figures, my cat is the crazy one.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

I need an honest answer, loyal Xanga readers. Twice in the past week people have asked me about my age. When I told them my answer, the said, "Oh." Apparently some people think I look 25. However, I would like to know about you. How old do you think I look? Older than I am? Younger? The age I am? Just curious.

Yearbook deadline is very soon, my cat is going bald, I haven't written a good story in awhile, and I'm extremely tired all the time.

Despite all of this, I have a pretty good attitude right now. Off to bed.*EDIT* Not that 25-year-old people look old. I'm just a few years away still.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

My roommates and I have some differing beliefs. For example, I believe in evolution; they mock it. For that reason, I stay out of their religious conversations. Normally, this isn't a problem, but they've started talking about religion a lot more often. Therefore, I avoid these conversations. I'm just trying to keep my rooming situation as comfortable as possible for the semester. I had to get that off my chest.

Anyway, yearbook deadline is in 7 days. I'm worried, but not too worried. I just wish everyone would put in the same amount of effort. I'm tired of slackers on my staff. Just five weeks to go...

That's become my mantra: Just five weeks to go. It keeps me going. I'm ready to be done with yearbook production. I don't mind teaching practicum, but I'm tired of trying to manage this staff. I think I understand how Kara felt last year. It's not so much the work as trying to get people to do their work.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

I need more bookshelf space. I'm about three shelves over capacity. I suppose the alternative would be for me to slim down my collection, but that's just foolishness. Maybe I can just get rid of my bed and put more bookshelves in my room.So, here's my tentative schedule for March:March 16-18 - College Media Advisers national convention, New York, New YorkMarch 19-26 - Spring Break/Wedding Planning, Hastings, MichiganMarch 29-April 2 - Sigma Tau Delta annual convention, Portland, Oregon.

That's a lot of travel. I have to admit, it would have been cooler to go to the Sigma Tau Delta conference last year--it was in Daytona Beach.

"Um...that's all I've got...um...God's good, but you know that already." - Anon.

"Just in case you get bored, we're having a conversation about God right now." - Anon.

"Of the colors, blue and green have the greatest emotional range. Sad reds and melancholy yellows are difficult to turn up. Among the ancient elements, blue occurs everywhere: in ice and water, in the flame as purely as in the flower, overhead and inside caves, covering fruit and oozing out of clay. Although green enlivens the earth and mixes in the ocean, and we find it, copperish, in fire; green air, green skies, are rare."From William Gass, On Being Blue (p. 75)

Friday, January 13, 2006

"Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water--peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lackit? And here again is a foreshadowings--the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries."

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

So, in all the flurry and hurry of resuming classes, I forgot to tell everyone in Xangaland about the most awkward Christmas present ever.

For those of you who don't know, I'm getting married this June, so Samantha and I get a lot of wedding-related presents at Christmas. So, we went over to my parents' house in the afternoon on Christmas to exchange presents with immediate family before my grandparents came up. As we're going around opening presents, it comes time for Samantha and I to open up a gift to both of us (it's not uncommon).

So we set the gift, which was small and book-shaped, between us and each grab a side to tear. The first word we see on the present: "sex." We both turned more and more red as we opened the present. Turns out, it is a Christian sex book called "Sheet Music." I'm shocked.

Here's the kicker:

My dad leans in and says, "Karen (that's my step-mom) and I have both read this, and we highly recommend it."

Yes, my parents gave us a sex book.

For those of you wondering what a "Christian sex book" is, it's a book all about sex, but it also supplies Bible passages to let you know what's okay to do.

So, in all the flurry and hurry of resuming classes, I forgot to tell everyone in Xangaland about the most awkward Christmas present ever.

For those of you who don't know, I'm getting married this June, so Samantha and I get a lot of wedding-related presents at Christmas. So, we went over to my parents' house in the afternoon on Christmas to exchange presents with immediate family before my grandparents came up. As we're going around opening presents, it comes time for Samantha and I to open up a gift to both of us (it's not uncommon).

So we set the gift, which was small and book-shaped, between us and each grab a side to tear. The first word we see on the present: "sex." We both turned more and more red as we opened the present. Turns out, it is a Christian sex book called "Sheet Music." I'm shocked.

Here's the kicker:

My dad leans in and says, "Karen (that's my step-mom) and I have both read this, and we highly recommend it."

Yes, my parents gave us a sex book.

For those of you wondering what a "Christian sex book" is, it's a book all about sex, but it also supplies Bible passages to let you know what's okay to do.

Monday, January 09, 2006

I got an email during break to the effect of inviting me to play the piano as background music at a forthcoming event. I replied to accept the offer, and the inviter said I wasn't needed and they had sent several emails out to different people. I wouldn't normally care so much, but it wasn't just a job posting. When someone writes you to ask for a favor, you expect to be the only person they want for the job. I'm a little disappointed. Plus, the person spelled my name wrong. I'm Brent, not Brett.

*EDIT* I even gave them a discount price because I was feeling nice.

I already have a crapload of work to do (yearbook proofs are in), but I can't bring myself to do anything else. Tomorrow is busy, so I have to do it now. Maybe I can resolve to not procrastinate as much this semester. I won't try to do away with procrastination completely, but maybe I can trim off some unnecessary procrastination.

I've been thinking a lot about new year's resolutions. I myself am not a resolutionist (I think I made that word up). I've never made a new year's resolution, and I'm not sure I will. However, I've been thinking about what my resolution for this year would be. Everything I've considered I've already broken, so I guess it's for the best I didn't try to convince myself that I would stick to it.

I get the feeling I should have been doing more work during break, but I just couldn't bring myself to do anything. I'd sit down to write, but something wouldn't click. I guess I had writer's apathy. I need to return to my writing routine. Maybe classes will help restructure things.I haven't started yet today, but we'll see how senior sem. goes. It seems kind of pointless from the outside observation.